Welcome to the first OpenRISC Conference

The first OpenRISC project conference - ORCONF 2012.

This is a conference which aims to bring together those involved with open source embedded systems development, from the transistor level up to Linux userspace and beyond. It is intended that the meeting would be useful for both developers and users of the platform to attend.

The event will run over Saturday, October 13 and Sunday, October 14.

The venue will be open from 11:00 on Saturday, with a light lunch available from 11:30 and presentations starting at 12:00.

mor1kx core presentation

A presentation of the new OR1k CPU implementation, demo it running and give an idea of its features, its implementation/verification approach, and its synthesis characteristics. I would invite Stefan Kristiansson to talk about about his portion of the design.

OR2K architectural discussion

Open source processes for OpenRISC

The OpenRISC project has grown to the stage where it needs better project management processes. Up until recently there was generally only one active developer for each component, who could be left to do their own thing. Now we have to co-ordinate multiple developers, with different agendas and different views on how processes should be managed.

OpenCores does not have a formal governing body, and it is unlikely this meeting can change this. However as the only gathering of the major contributors it is the best opportunity to get a concensus on the way to move forward. Key issues to discuss are:

Process for review, approval and commit of changes. How do we choose lead developers/maintainers/approvers? When should we start a new version, and how?

Structure of the project. Should ORPSoC be a separate project to OpenRISC (like minsoc)? Should the tools be a separate project as well? Should we have a project manager and if so how should he/she be chosen?

Choice of version control system. Do we leave it to the lead developer to choose/change or do we establish a project-wide policy.

Where should repositories live. Should they always be on OpenCores.org or always on openrisc.net or on the lead developer's GitHub/SorceForge account?

Mailing lists and IRC. In addition to the OpenCores forum, we have two OpenRISC mailing lists, one run by opencores.org, one by openrisc.net. Last year's meeting achieved a concensus that for the time being all contributions would be cross-posted, pending the merging of the two lists (which was agreed to by both list owners). The lists have not been merged and the concensus is now breaking down, making entry for new participants very difficult. We also have two IRC channels on Freenode (#opencores and #openrisc) which both discuss the same subjects, but with a not completely overlapping set of contributors. How do we move forward?

When I look at the list above, it is clear that the questions are being asked in a vacuum. So I think we need an initial discussion on the question of "What is the primary purpose of OpenCores and OpenRISC?"

to promote open source

to promote open source in Silicon IP

to design better processors

to make cheaper designs available to industry

to make it easier for people to learn how to design chips

These are difficult issues, but we cannot miss the opportunity to discuss them. It will be important to keep the discussion structured (hence my list above) and well chaired (to ensure all points of view are heard). Where concensus is reached, that can be used as an agreed process going forward. However the whole discussion should be documented, so where there is not agreement, we have a starting point for the future.

Dynamic linking with OpenRISC Linux toolchain

ORPSoCv3

A number of problems has been identified with the current version of ORPSoC. ORPSoCv3 aims to fix this by having a more modular structure, reducing complexity for common operations and taking better advantage of the other components in the OpenRISC ecosystem.

Length: 30 minutes

Audience: RTL developers of OpenRISC and other IP cores for the wishbone bus

OpenRISC for Newbies

eCos for OpenRISC

The eCos port for OpenRISC has recently had a makeover, and will be presented. The session will consist of explanations of the OS, how it works, details of the OpenRISC port and a demonstration of the software running on OpenRISC hardware.

Bug squashing session

We have a few long-standing bugs in bugzilla that just needs a little attention to be fixed. While we are all gathered, this could be an excellent opportunity to do some work. There are also some patches floating around on the mailing lists that were never dealt with properly. Some candidates for bug fixing and the kind of works that needs to be done follows:

OpenRISC development boards and modules

This presentation will give an overview of different hardware platforms suitable for realization of OpenRISC based systems. We will go through what is available today and take a look of upcoming boards with enhanced performance